


The Score

by Nyssa23



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Christian Character of Color, Christianity, Flashback, Gen, Religions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-15
Updated: 2010-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyssa23/pseuds/Nyssa23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place after "House Training." Foreman remembers how far he's come, and how far he hasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Score

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2007.

Eric Foreman knew the score. Or, at least, that's what he'd been telling himself on a regular basis these days. He was worth more, he could do better, he didn't have to keep on this path. Then, suddenly, he'd think of Lupe in her last hours, and his resolve would waver.

In the neat little non-denominational Princeton-Plainsboro chapel, he'd counted all the panels in the ceiling and noticed the fine layer of dust on the stained glass, waiting for revelation, for absolution, waiting even to be struck by lightning--waiting for any sign that anything he did mattered. He remembered something his mother used to say, back when the light was still in her eyes and her hand had been firm on his each Sunday morning in church. "When someone says they're looking for God, God's not the one who moved."

He remembered the last time he'd visited his family: how small and cluttered the rooms he'd grown up in seemed, how stale the air inside, how he'd almost run then, when it was time to go, half afraid that some invisible hand would snatch away his suitcase and drag him back inside. He looked around him at the apartment he'd taken pains to decorate as sparingly as possible, everything in its place, as perfect as the model rooms from the Swedish furniture catalog. There were no photographs on the walls, nothing personal to suggest who the occupant was or where he had come from. Sometimes, after a long day (or night) at work, Foreman walked around the place--his place--touching the things he'd bought, reminding himself that they were his, that this was his, that he belonged here.

Alone in his living room, Foreman contemplated the framed picture his father had left with him and remembered the day of his high school graduation, how his mother had beamed and his father had tried to hide the tears welling at the corners of his eyes. How Marcus had skulked around the edges of the celebration, occasionally darting in Eric's direction looks of resentment and envy and a terrible naked need that Eric had, that they all had, somehow failed to see. No. Marcus had chosen his path. Eric Foreman was not his brother's keeper.

Alone in his living room, Dr. Eric Foreman gazed into the eyes of his younger self in the picture, then carefully placed the frame face-down on the glass coffee table and turned out the light.


End file.
